The Nightmare Man: Part 1
by Jim King
Summary: Hello, this is Jim King. It's my first story post, so tell me what you think about it.


The Nightmare Man  
  
By Eric Steigleder  
  
The boilers hummed and moaned, and the rusted, dirty pipes discharged thick clouds of white steam. And suddenly, Freddy Krueger, the infamous child killer appeared, his burnt skin gleamed in the humid air, and his ragged green and red sweater and brown moth-eaten hat all brought the impression of darkness and danger. He tiptoed quietly down the steel bridge; huge vats and boilers chugged on under him. A tattered workers glove covered his pink, raw right hand. On the end of each finger were steel blades, fashioned onto metal knuckle guards. He lifted his weapon, and scraped it across the handrail of the bridge. The sound was a maddening screech, but to Freddy, it was sweet music.  
  
He stopped, and glared forward, a smile appeared over his face, a face only a mother could love. SCREEECCHH! Metal against metal, somewhere distant, not of his bladed-hand, but of another. His head jerked upwards, and he sniffed the air. Crooking his neck downward, Fred lifted his glove. He galloped along, sidestepping and chuckling. "One, Two, Freddy's coming for you." Fred couldn't contain himself. He chuckled again. In a short while, some wretched teen would be dead, the blood would drip from his clawed-hand, and Freddy would be content. It was his day, his day to murder, his day to maim; he loved every minute of it. And then he saw the tangle of pipes. Yes, that's where the child would be hiding, hunched in a ball, screaming and crying for a daylight that would never come, an ending to the nightmare that would never be. He tiptoed forward as the pipes loomed ever closer. He could almost hear the final squeal of the teen as he hung lifeless from his rusty claw.  
  
Freddy took a deep swig of air, and swiped the glove behind the tangle of pipes, hoping for the familiar roar of pain, and the sound of ripping flesh, scraping the bone beneath. Instead, he felt the clang of his claw on a pipe, and the index-blade bending. Freddy held his hands in front of his face, gasped, and backed away. He couldn't let this stop him, no way no how. He regained his wits, and turned to face his original position, now, for some reason, blocked by a thick mist. He pushed the white fog away with swipes of his hands, and began chanting. "Three, four, better lock your door, five, six, grab your crucifix." He began to sweat, his singed pores pulsated and his temples throbbed.  
  
"Seven, eight, better stay up late." He was close to laughter now, but something else shone through his happiness. Was it fear? It couldn't be, but it was. Freddy could make out a figure in the smokey distance, emerging from the fog. He squinted his eyes, and then drew back, grinning. "Nine, ten, never sleep again." There stood Nancy Thompson, the woman who had defeated Freddy first. She had emerged only seconds before Freddy had spouted off his last words. She wore her old, cotton nightgown, as she had on the night she had beaten him. She looked seventeen again.  
  
Freddy grinned, his putrid teeth green and rotting. "Well hello Nancy, I though I'd finished you off yeeeears ago, when you mistook me for dear old daddy.." He spun around, and shook his glove. This was his favorite part, she would be very scared right about now, Tense and frozen. She returned an even wider smile that chilled Freddy's heart, if he had a heart, to the very core. She would surly die now, no waking up for Nancy tomorrow morning. "Just here to return the favor." She hissed. Freddy saw the quick gleam of a blade, the sound of it slicing air, and he screamed in pain. She lifted her hand, only it wasn't her hand. It had a glove on it. His bladed glove. She had swiped it across his left shoulder, and blood dripped from her own menacing steel weapon. His green and red sweater grew wet and dripped red through the holes in the floor, and landed upon the hot boilers below, and sizzled.  
  
Stunned, Freddy turned quickly to make a mad dash for a ladder, another bridge, something. Instead, he intercepted steel claws into his upper stomach. Not to deep, but deep enough to draw blood, and tears. Freddie had doubled over, and now looked up at the culprit with wide, red eyes. It was Glenn, one of the first victims on Elm Street, and Nancy's old flame. Freddy recalled how Glenn had met his end, sinking into his own bed, only to be spit out in a stream of thick, messy blood. Those were the days. How could he be here now, how could any of them be here right now? Unless...  
  
Glen pulled his own razor-clad glove out of Freddy soft, burned flesh, and swiped it across his face. Fred lurched to the side. The old bridge had since started to shake and wriggle. Freddy slapped a hand onto his bleeding cheek, his eyes wide in disbelief. His hat slipped away, and twisted in odd patterns, until it plopped onto a boiler below. Fred had forgotten about his hat, and his chest, and how the steam had suddenly disappeared when Glen and Nancy had shown up. The only thought racing through his boiled mind was why they were here, why they were winning, on his turf. He soon forgot that too. Amongst his bumbling, he had approached the hand railing. He backed into it, loss control of his upper body, and gravity did the rest. Freddy plummeted, back first, to his death. Before he landed in the bright fires or crashed into the hot boilers, he glanced up for one moment, long enough to see the teen-aged face of Glen and Nancy, starring down and waving with  
razor-fingers......  
  
Fredrick Krueger awoke in a mass of sweat, blood, and confusion. His bed was deep velvet in some places, and his pillow was soaked with perspiration. His dreams had been this bad if not worse since his daughter had finished him off, and his dream demons had left him high and dry. Sure, his daughter killed Freddy Krueger, ending his reign as almighty murderer of dreams, but his mortal counterpart, Fredrick Krueger, was very much alive. Fredrick longed for that great power, that great immortality, but he knew all to well that the only possibility of his dream demons returning and transforming him were slim to none. It's scripture, he thought. Fredrick wasn't burned or singed, and still had some remaining hair, but his powers were gone, a lowly mortal.  
  
Fredrick touched his stomach and shoulder. Both places throbbed and bled. He ran a hand across his cheek, and quickly jerked it away, blood now smudged across his palm. Fredrick grabbed the mound of gauze from his nightstand, (a nightly ritual he had grown accustomed to) and wrapped it around his shoulder, and then his stomach, careful not to widen the punctures marks. He threw the remaining mound of gauze on the floor. His cheek would have to wait till morning. And so, the once infamous child killer threw himself back onto the damp bed, soon to fall into the deep void of dreams, where the dead Elm Street children could freely take their revenge upon poor Freddy Krueger... 


End file.
